SAN ANDREAS Gets New Disaster Fueled Trailer

Disaster films used to be all the rage, with filmmakers like Roland Emmerich leading the charge to busting our brains with insane amounts of destruction caused by weather anomalies, aliens, and giant lizards who thought they were Godzilla. But the trend seemed to finally die down in the early 2000s, with Emmerich seemingly destroying the entire planet, and therefore the genre, with 2012. But it looks as if WB thinks there’s something left in the genre, as their new take on Earthquake, now aptly called San Andres.

The film stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a helicopter pilot who must find his daughter when a devastating earthquake shakes California to its core. But what most don’t realize is that the earthquake is just the beginning of something much bigger and more destructive. It’s a race against time as he must get from Los Angeles to San Francisco, hoping to find his daughter and save her. Check out the new trailer for the film below.

The film looks like it’ll pack a visual punch, which could be great fun. But the film’s biggest problem for me, at least with the trailers, is that it seems to be taking a very serious approach to this kind of material, which doesn’t make it that appetizing. While Emmerich’s films really aren’t fine art, at least there’s a sense of fun with them that made the destruction and chaos easier to swallow. The stark serious nature of the trailer makes me worry this film could be grueling to get through, making a rather unpleasant experience. Though maybe the serious nature could give the genre its bite back, which could be fine, but it’s hard to see a movie like this where The Rock isn’t using his charisma to make it work. I’m hoping for the best here, but so far San Andreas has me a bit cold.

San Andres opens May 29, 2015.

After the infamous San Andreas Fault finally gives, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake in California, a search and rescue helicopter pilot (Dwayne Johnson) and his estranged wife make their way together from Los Angeles to San Francisco to save their only daughter. But their treacherous journey north is only the beginning. And when they think the worst may be over…it’s just getting started.